Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals

Abstract

In January 1978 a group of editors from some major biomedical journals published in English met in Vancouver, British Columbia, and decided on uniform technical requirements for manuscripts to be submitted to their journals. These requirements, including formats for bibliographic references developed for the Vancouver group by the National Library of Medicine, were published in three of the journals early in 1979. The Vancouver group evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). At the October 1981 meeting the requirements were revised slightly and published in a second edition in 1982. Since then the group has issued several